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Nick sits on the porch of the old building, Troy following suit. Nick hands him the book Morgan gave him and pulls the bluebonnet he’d picked earlier out of his pocket.
"Do you think I was right to kill him?" Nick asks, staring down at the flower.
"After all that bastard and his brother did to us, he deserved a lot worse than what you did to him." Troy tells him.
Nick doesn't say anything in response. Since Troy had been the one to keep Morgan from stopping him, he isn't really sure why he bothered to ask.
Troy cups the hand holding the bluebonnet with own and shifts closer, his arm wrapping around Nick's shoulder.
"Thinking about Madison?" He guesses.
Nick meets his gaze and nods slightly. "She told me she always looks for something good when she's out here. A sign of something good - like people helping each other or even just a flower or a shitty pun on a billboard."
"So, is this your something good for today then?" Troy asks.
Nick looks back at the bluebonnet, twirling the stem with his thumb and forefinger. "Yeah," he says quietly.
Troy squeezes his hand. "We're gonna find her, Nicky."
Nick opens his mouth to reply but just then a shot rings out and then there's a pain blossoming in his gut. He touches himself where the pain is most intense and pulls his hand back to see blood on his fingers. He looks up and sees Charlie standing twenty feet away holding a gun in her shaking hands.
"No!" Troy shouts as he breaks away from Nick.
"Charlie," Nick says, and then he's falling to the ground. He sees Troy come into view, watches him run towards Charlie. She takes off, but Troy has longer legs and tackles her to the ground.
"Troy," Nick calls weakly. Blood is already starting to fill his mouth.
He doesn't want Charlie to die - knows Troy will kill her if he doesn't ask him not to. Troy might've liked her once, but that was before she betrayed them.
"Nick!" Alicia yells, and it sounds like she's running towards him.
Charlie screams as Troy picks her up, kicks her legs desperately to get away from him. Alicia blocks them both from Nick's vision, but he hears Luciana yelling at Troy to let her go. She'll stop him - he's gotten better at listening to other people besides Nick.
Alicia is crying now, telling Nick he can't die, but he feels it - feels the famliar pull of death - except this time he knows he can't escape it. He can't speak now, all he can do is gasp desperately as he chokes on his own blood.
Victor is there too, but he isn't saying anything, just trying not to make a sound as he fights his tears.
Alicia moves suddenly and then there's Troy who grabs his face in both hands, and says, "You can't die on me Nicky. You can't." Nick discovers he's crying when he rests his forehead against his, and the angle's awkward so his wet eyelashes touch the bridge of his nose. He grasps the front of Troy's shirt as he struggles to breathe, and Troy moves a hand away from his face to place it over Nick's.
"We were supposed to beat this world together, " Troy sounds broken as he reminds Nick of words spoken months ago in the comfort of their bed.
And Nick wishes he could speak, wishes he could at least tell Troy he loves him one last time, wishes he could tell Alicia he's sorry for leaving her, wishes he could tell Strand and Luciana how much they mean to him. He wishes he could've seen his mother one last time.
Everything starts to fade away very quickly and soon Nick can't feel, can't see, and all he can hear are his last rasping breaths of air.
Madison had always thought Troy would get him killed. Oh how wrong she was.
Troy feels a hand on his shoulder.
"We should go," Strand says.
Troy just pulls Nick farther up on his lap.
"Troy, we can't stay here," Luciana tells him, and he knows that, he does, but leaving Nick just isn't an option for him.
"He's...He's gonna turn any minute." Alicia says, voice rough. "If we stop him from turning we can take him somewhere and bury him.'
Troy shakes his head. "No! You can't bury him! That's not what he’d want!"
"You just wanna leave him here?" And it sounds like an accusation.
"I - I want to turn with him," Troy admits, staring down at Nick's face.
"Are you insane?' Alicia asks. "All Nick ever did was try to keep your sorry ass alive and now you're going to just die?"
"He's all that matters to me," Troy tells her firmly. "If Nicky's gone, there's nothing left for me - nothing I want without him."
"Troy, Nick wouldn't want this," Luciana tells him gently, placing her hand on his shoulder and he's grown to like her, even despite her history with Nick, but she's not enough for him to keep going. Not Alicia, not Strand and not Madsion either.
"But I do, and he's not here to stop me," Troy says, shoving her hand off of him. He doesn't say that he's afraid of what he might do to Charlie if he stays. Doesn't say he can already see how things will play out if he gets on that truck where she currently is with Dorie. Doesn't say he can't bear to let Nick down one last time because he won't be able to stop himself - not without his Nicky.
"We need to go," Strand says.
"So go," Troy tells him, looking up to stare directly into Strand's eyes.
Strand studies him, but not for long. He probably understands, even if he couldn't do it with his own husband, he must get it because he turns to Alicia and says, "Let him have this."
Troy can see the protest in her eyes as she stares at Strand in disbelief, but then she takes one look at Troy and it dissipates. She nods.
One by one, the others come and say goodbye to Troy. Sure they hadn't always gotten along, but they'd survived a lot together. That mattered - especially in this hellscape of a world.
"Give this back to Morgan," Troy says, pulling the small book out of his pocket and handing it to Alicia.
Alicia squeezes his shoulder and then everyone's leaving. He waits until he hears the truck pulling away before he pulls the string out of his hoodie.
It won't be long now before Nick turns so he has to work fast. He ties one end of the string to his right wrist, then he takes the shoelaces out of his sneakers and ties one of them to the other end of the hoodie string to make it into one long string. After that, he ties the free end to Nick's left wrist, grabs the bluebonnet still clutched in Nick's hand, and lies down next to him once he's sure it won't break.
Even if he can't make it to where Nick is or isn't in the after life, he'll make sure they stay together in this one. He uses the other shoelace to reinforce the knot holding the hoodie string and the other shoelace together, deciding to slip the bluebonnet into it and then he just waits.
It only takes another minute and then Troy hears the guttural gasps of an infected. He looks to Nick, watches as he slowly starts moving towards him because of some primal instinct the infected have.
"Come and get me, Nicky."
Nick climbs on top of him and bears down on his neck almost immediately and it hurts - it's close to being to the worst pain Troy has ever felt next to losing Nick - but he doesn't care.
He closes his eyes. This is how he's chosen to die and no one can take that away from him.
The pain stops suddenly and when he opens his eyes it's to a clear blue sky, and a nice breeze running across his skin. He furrows his brow in confusion.
"Troy."
Troy's head snaps to his right because he knows that voice.
Nick smiles at him and its slightly obstructed by a bluebonnet swaying between them. "Couldn't live without me, could you?"
"Did you really expect me to?" Troy questions.
Nick shakes his head, his smile falling. "No, but I expected you to come later. I thought maybe you’d try to kill Charlie first, threaten someone, and the others would eventually decide to kill you cos you became a problem again."
"And I didn't want to do that. I knew you wouldn't want me to. That's why I had to come now," Troy tells him. "I'm no good without you."
"You’re not much better with me," Nick says.
"But I'm still better," Troy insists. "I can at least keep my shit together if you're around, Nicky."
"So since I wasn't you just killed yourself?" Nick asks. "And the others let you?"
Troy nods. "I think they knew they couldn't stop me."
"And if they'd tried?" Nick questions.
"I would've forced them to kill me," Troy says. Without hesitation, he would've launched himself at Alicia and made her kill him by any means necessary.
Nick shakes his head like he isn't sure what he's going to do with Troy, but he doesn't look surprised. And he knows Nick probably wouldn't have done the same thing for him, but he knows he still matters to him, knows that for all their similarities, they're wildly different people with different ways of handling things.
"You always said our relationship was a bit fucked up," Troy points out and it earns him a laugh.
"So, how did you do it?"
"I let you turn and then you did the rest."
"You made me eat you?"
"It's not like you haven't done it before," Troy jokes with a cocky smile.
Nick laughs again and reaches between them to grab his hand. Suddenly, Troy can feel the string around his wrist, but only for a moment.
Nick must've felt it too because he asks, "Did you do something else?"
Troy looks away from him and down at their conjoined hands. It feels stupid now to do what he did with the shoelaces and hoodie string. "I...may have tied us together."
Nick laughs, and laughs, and Troy can't believe it's possible to be embarrassed even in the after life. But then Nick stops laughing and Troy sees him start to move. He looks over to Nick who smirks down at him as he straddles him.
"You love me way too much," Nick says, and then he kisses Troy.
And maybe he does, but he knows Nick loves him too so it's okay.
Back on earth, two infected stumble down the streets and towards the sunset, only a thin tether keeping them together, a bluebonnet swaying unpredictably between them.